Stardust Status Report

December 21, 2001

There were two Deep Space Network tracking passes this week, and all Stardust's subsystems are operating normally. Stardust is currently 2.63 AU (about 244 million miles or 393 million kilometers) from the Sun. Since the angle between the Sun, Earth and spacecraft is less than 3 degrees (solar conjunction) making communication difficult, there will be no commanding with the spacecraft until early January.

Preparations for the second Deep Space Maneuver -- the seventh trajectory correction-- have begun. The sequence will be developed in January 2002.

For more information on the Stardust mission - the first ever comet sample return mission - please visit the Stardust home page:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov